


bound to support his son

by elumish



Category: Sherlock (TV), Teen Wolf (TV), The Sentinel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Gen, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-03-16 23:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13646238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish
Summary: Mycroft Holmes feels the onlining from 5,300 miles away, like the aftershocks of a distant earthquake, shaking through his body until it feels like the whole room is swaying.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First, this is set in a totally different world from new destructions in the sky with, among other things, a somewhat different Sentinel/Guide system.
> 
> Also don't be concerned by mentions of Beta or Alpha--this isn't A/B/O.

Mycroft Holmes feels the onlining from 5,300 miles away, like the aftershocks of a distant earthquake, shaking through his body until it feels like the whole room is swaying. He’s in the middle of a meeting with the PM, discussing enhanced surveillance regulations, when he loses the ability to speak, his tongue catching around the feeling of fear and anger.

When he gets his eyes open, the PM is staring at him with a look of concern, asking, “Mr. Holmes, are you alright?”

It takes Mycroft an unconscionably long time to be able to open his mouth and say, “I am fine. If you will excuse me, I have Sentinel matters to attend to.”

“Of course. Have your assistant send me a draft of the proposal.”

Mycroft makes himself nod and stand, even though his legs don’t want to hold him; he collects his things and walks out of the PM’s office, keeping his hands loose and gentle so as not to betray his distress. He has felt powerful onlinings before, but this one, wherever it was from, it cut through his not-informidable shields as though he was a low-level one-sense and not the Sentinel Prime of the United Kingdom.

Anthea is waiting outside the office for him, and she looks shaken, more so than he’s seen from her since Nigeria.

“Where?” he asks as soon as the door to the PM’s office is closed; they are still in public, so he can’t do anything as uncouth as leaning against a wall, but the relative privacy allows him to dig his fingers into his legs and try to re-remember how to breathe.

Anthea shakes her head as they take off down the hall. “Unclear as of this moment.”

“If we can’t locate an onlining that strong in the United Kingdom—”

She shakes her head again. “Best estimate is somewhere on the west coast of America or Canada. We are in touch with American and Canadian S/G Centers, but they’re floundering; it seems as though the entire continent felt it. They’re hoping you can say if it was a Sentinel or a Guide, because at that level they’re having trouble distinguishing.

Mycroft swallows, the feeling of that fear shuddering through him again. “Sentinel. If they don’t get stabilized soon, they’re going to fall, and I doubt Blair Sandburg would be able to get them back.”

“Sir?”

“Have someone check on Sherlock.”

Anthea nods. “Yes, sir. And DI Lestrade?”

Mycroft hesitates, then says, “Bring him in, tell him we’re liaising with him. Actually liaise with him. Just keep him in the office.”

Anthea stops and blinks at him. “Sir? DI Lestrade isn’t an S/G liaison.”

“I don’t  _ care _ ,” Mycroft says, then lowers his voice again before it can reach too shrill a level. “I am holding on to stabilization by far too thin a thread, and if I do not know if he is okay then that thread will continue to thin.”

“Yes, sir.” She pulls out her phone and starts typing something, and Mycroft focuses the bulk of his not insubstantial intelligence on staying upright and walking in a straight line. His vision is wavering, and he’s finding a truly inconvenient tremor in his right hand.

He puts up the blackout windows in the car as soon as they’re in it, raising the divider between the driver and him and Anthea. His pulse throbs through his skull, and he lowers his eyelids to keep the last bit of light out.

He can hear Anthea typing intermittently on her Blackberry, can hear her breathing, can hear the beat of her heart. She pulls in a quiet breath, then asks, “Would you like some superol, sir?”

Superol is a Sentinel-tailored pain medication, rated up to Beta-level five-sense Sentinels. Mycroft is not a Beta-level five-sense Sentinel. “No,” he says, and he can hear the rasping in his throat. “Update me on Sherlock.”

“Sherlock Dropped but has been revived by Dr. Watson and is currently stable.”

Mycroft presses trembling fingers to the fine cloth of the leg of his pants. “Sherlock Dropped?”

“Yes, sir,” she says. She swallows. “DI Lestrade is being transported to the office.”

“What is his status?”

“He indicated to Alvin that he caught the tail end of the wave but was overall unaffected by its force. Silverman is in the car with him, should he be affected.”

“Thank you.” Mycroft smooths his hand down against his knee. “Are you stable?”

“Yes, sir.” The car slows, and Anthea continues, “We have arrived, sir. Shall I have the door opened?”

“Where are we parked?”

“Indoor parking garage, private level.”

Mycroft lets out a slow breath, then opens his eyes and nods. Anthea knocks on the divider, and the driver opens his own door and then opens Mycroft’s. Air floods the car, stinking of gasoline and rubber, and Mycroft fights off the urge to gag. Breathing through the Sandburg-Ellis Sensory Exercise, Mycroft steps out of the car. The pressure on his feet is wrong, as though his sense of touch has flatlined incorrectly.

He takes a step forward, and while the touch does not stabilize to the correct level, he makes the mental adjustment that allows him to walk without weaving back and forth. Anthea follows around behind him, typing on her Blackberry. The sound grates. Her heels click. Mycroft is maximum two minutes from drowning in his own head.

The elevator is too small and he can hear his pulse and Anthea’s and the slide of the cables for the elevator. He digs his fingers into his thigh and grounds on the individual points of pressure.

DI Lestrade is standing outside the elevator when the doors slide open, and Mycroft breathes in his scent, and everything goes still.

Mycroft gives himself half a second and then steps out of the elevator, towards DI Lestrade. “Thank you for coming, Detective Inspector.”

Lestrade rolls his eyes. “Your underlings didn’t give me much of a choice. What’s up? Why did you have me come here?”

“As you are likely aware, there is an ongoing S/G incident on the West Coast of North America. I brought you here to liaise between myself and Scotland Yard.”

Lestrade blinks at him. “I’m not an S/G liaison. You know that, right? I mean, you’re—you don’t look well, by the way. I’m not sure if you’ve looked in the mirror lately, but—”

“I am fine, thank you. And yes, I am aware that you are not currently designated as a Sentinel/Guide liaison by Scotland Yard. However, you are a Guide, and one of the only Guides I trust around my brother. As such, you are one of the only Guides I trust to liaise with and not fuck it up.”

Lestrade gapes at him. “You swear?”

Ordinarily, no, but his control is still somewhat shot, and Lestrade brings down some of his walls more than he generally intends for them to go down. “Silverman will show you to where you can work and give you anything you need.”

“Look,” Lestrade says, “not that I don’t appreciate your trust in me, but I’m a DI, not a liaison. I’ll be the first person to admit I don’t have the expertise or the connections necessary to do whatever it is you need me to do.”

“Silverman will provide you with anything you need,” Mycroft tells him, and his entire head goes numb. He is unsure whether he will be able to properly shape words, so he nods to Anthea, then turns and walks towards the back entrance to his office. The room Lestrade will be in is adjacent to his, but he has no inclination to reveal that to Lestrade at this time.

Anthea clicks after him, and he uses the sound to ground on as he walks away from Lestrade. It is difficult to take those steps, each one through a force of will. It is the sound of Anthea’s steps that he grounds on, and the familiar wood grain of the walls.

As soon as the two of them are in his office with the door closed and locked, he sinks into his chair, pressing both hands flat on the top of his desk. He cannot feel it.

“What do you need?” Anthea asks.

“DI Lestrade is wearing a scarf. Replace it with an identical one and bring it to me.” The sound of footsteps flares into his hearing, glaringly loud, and he barely restrains a flinch. “Confirm Sherlock’s wellbeing. Get me Blair Sandburg. In that order.”

“Yes, sir.”

Anthea leaves the room, and Mycroft sits where he is, perfectly still, breathing so shallowly he can barely hear the air rushing through his circulatory system. He has control. He will not be controlled by this. There is no other god than the mind, and he will be the god of his own mind. 

By the time Anthea returns with a scarf smelling of Lestrade, Mycroft can feel his face again, and the trembling has eased. He takes the scarf from her, and he is able to handle her scent on it because she is the closest thing he has to a working Guide.

“Sherlock?” he asks as he meticulously folds the scarf and settles it on his desk, just beside his right hand. Tension eases in his spine. He breathes. He is calm.

“Settled. If I may say, sir, you reacted significantly more severely to this onlining than any before.”

“S/G file number 43724,” he tells her. “But first, get me in touch with Blair Sandburg.”

Her eyebrow goes up. “Hard copy or digital version?”

He shakes his head. “I know what it says. You read it.”

“Yes, sir.” She types something into her phone, then puts it up to her ear to say, “Sentinel Prime Holmes for Guide Prime Sandburg. Patch through to Mr. Holmes’s office phone, authorization 6273.”

A second later, his office phone rings, and he picks it up to hear Guide Prime Sandburg and, beyond him, Sentinel Prime Ellison. There is noise beyond them, but for the moment he deliberately pulls his hearing back. It’s polite, but more importantly, he doesn’t quite trust his control at the moment. “Mycroft,” the Guide Prime says. His voice is strained, though still characteristically cheerful. “Thank you for getting in touch so quickly. How are you doing?”

“Stable,” Mycroft says. “What’s going on?”

“It’s an onlining, as I know you’re aware. Now that it’s lessened, we’ve corroborated that it is a Sentinel. Approximate location is California.”

“Any current traumatic incidents in the state?”

“Hundreds, probably, but nothing of note. We’ve reached out to every S/G center in the state, as well as the surrounding states.”

“How far-reaching is the backlash?”

“We have reports of unbonded Alphas Dropping all over the continent, and five-sense Betas Dropped as far east as Oklahoma.”

That’s the biggest onlining Mycroft has seen since he took charge of the British S/G Centre, particularly given that Sentinel onlinings are not as psychically traumatic as their Guide counterparts. “Do you have the resources to handle that?”

“We do.”

In the background, Sentinel Prime Ellison says, “We have a location. Beacon Hills, California. The S/G center is reporting being the epicenter.”

Mycroft scrawls the name on a piece of paper, sliding it across his desk to Anthea. She picks it up, typing away at her Blackberry. “Please inform me if you or the S/G center requires any assistance.”

“Of course,” the Guide Prime says. “Thank you. Yourself, your brother, how are you doing? Have you found a Guide yet?”

Mycroft presses his lips together. “I am not searching for a Guide.” This has been a constant area of debate between them, for as long as he’s been in contact with with the Guide Prime. “And my brother is doing adequately.”

“A Guide will help you—”

“Your concern is unnecessary,” Mycroft says, “but my thanks regardless. If you will excuse me.”

“Yeah,” the Guide Prime says. “Of course. Thank you for calling.”

Mycroft hangs up, looking up at Anthea. “What do you have on Beacon Hills?”

She glances up from her phone, then back down at it to say, “Beacon Hills is a city in northern California. Known primarily for the murder of a large family about a decade ago; they were locked in their house and burned to death. There were three survivors, only one of whom is still alive today. Derek Hale.”

“S/G Center?”

“NorCal Central S/G Center.”

“Any onlinings?”

“Not from the fire. There are two citizens of Beacon Hills currently being served by the Center—Jordan Parrish and Stiles Stilinski, both Guides.”

“Levels?”

“Parrish is Beta, Stilinski is Alpha. Both unbonded.”

“Both onlined in town?”

“Parrish onlined while deployed in Iraq.” Anthea looks up at him. “Sir, why did you have me read that file?”

Mycroft’s hand twitches beside Lestrade’s scarf. “Before today, that was the strongest recording onlining in history.”

She frowns. “The name was redacted.”

“It was mine.”

“Yours.” It’s clearly not a question that requires a response, so Mycroft waits. After a second, Anthea says, “You believe that today’s onlining was stronger.”

“I know that today’s onlining was stronger.” Mycroft gives in and sets his hand against the edge of the scarf. The weaving jerk of his senses finishes stabilizing, and he exhales slowly. “Once the onlining incident has concluded, request admission to the United States from the Prime Pair. If they deny admission, put me in contact with the newly-onlined Sentinel as soon as they are stable.” Anthea’s eyebrow arches in question. “They will need help, and I am uniquely qualified to provide it.”

\--

5,300 miles away, Lydia Martin screams.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles has always known that his dad isn’t his biological father.

It was never one of those things in his family, a teary confession that ends with the kid stomping out to sit on a swing set in the rain until someone comes and tells them that family isn’t who you’re born from, but where you call home. It was just how it worked; his parents took a break, his mom slept with some guy, his parents got back together. He has parents, and that’s it.

Had parents. Has parent.

But regardless, the person who provided the sperm doesn’t really matter to Stiles, because that guy isn’t Stiles’s dad.

It got a little more complicated when Stiles came online as a Guide, because hey, neither of his parents are from S/G lines and so it would have been nice to know that he was at risk for spontaneously having his head get fucked, but some things (like werewolves) are unforeseeable, and Stiles is fine.

And honestly, his unexpected onlining was probably a good thing, because it made them slightly more prepared for Lydia’s  _ batshit fucking insane _ unexpected onlining, which apparently broke the brains of most of the Sentinels and Guides on the continent.

She’s asleep now, actually asleep, curled up across both Stiles’s lap and Jordan Parrish’s. Which is not particularly comfortable, but it’s Lydia, and Stiles would die for her, so letting her sprawl unconscious on top of him is not such a huge sacrifice.

Blair Sandburg, the Guide fucking Prime of the United States, crouches down in front of the couch they’re all on, hand near Lydia’s face. Stiles kind of wants to yank her away from him, even though he’s the Guide Prime, because Stiles doesn’t know him, and he also doesn’t think Lydia would want a strange man touching her while she’s asleep.

Sandburg can presumably feel it, because he glances up at Stiles’s face, saying, “I’m not going to hurt her.”

Stiles shifts a little so his arm blocks the view of Lydia’s face. “Any reason you can’t not-hurt her without physical contact?”

Sandburg looks at Parrish, who looks placidly murderous, then back at Stiles. “Are you her Guide?”

“Who are you talking to?” Stiles asks.

“I was talking to you, though I suppose the question applies to either of you.”

Stiles rolls his eyes, glancing down at Lydia. She hasn’t slept this deeply--deeply enough to sleep through a conversation going on around her--in a long time. “No. But she’s a friend.” He can feel her panic, fluttering through her brain despite her being asleep, and then Parrish smooths a hand across her ankle, soothing her. “You’ve never seen friends before?”

Sandburg’s eyebrows go up. “You seem particularly adept at connecting with her, given that neither of you have a bond.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Look, are you here to do something useful, or are you planning on just staring at us until we start confessing to crimes or whatever?”

“I can make him leave,” Parrish says softly, hand not moving form Lydia’s ankle. Stiles isn’t particularly sure if he’s talking about using magic Guide shit or about physically forcing him out, but either way, it’s kind of hot. In an ‘in-other-circumstances-Stiles-would-kind-of-want-Parrish-to-do-that-to-him’ sort of way.

Sandburg sighs, shoving his hair back from his face. “Look, I’m not trying to hurt Ms. Martin. The speed at which she fell asleep after her onlining is concerning, because given how strong her onlining was, she should be entirely overwhelmed by her senses, particularly without a bond. What I want to do is ensure that she is actually asleep rather than in zone or a grey-out, trapped inside her own head.”

“She’s not.”

Sandburg looks over at Parrish. “Without a bond, you can’t be certain of that.”

They are, though, or at least Stiles is, but he knows there’s no way in hell he can keep Sandburg out of Lydia’s head if Sandburg wants in it, and that’s not a fight he wants to get into, so he says, “You’re going in her head, we go in together.”

Sandburg hesitates, then says, “Give me your hand.”

Stiles takes in a breath, then holds out his hand, keeping the other one on Lydia’s side. Sandburg takes his hand, and with a breath, everything fades.

They’re inside Lydia’s head, Stiles knows, would know even if he didn’t otherwise know, because it feels like Lydia, math and brilliance and perfectly-shaped porcelain underlaid with steel. She shifts when they enter, like rolling over in the bed while still mostly asleep, but then she settles, relaxing again.

It’s an odd feeling, being inside someone else’s head. Like closing your eyes and seeing the lights playing behind your eyelids, but with feelings that are not your own, that you know are not your own. Sandburg might be seeing something different, Stiles doesn’t know.

“What are you looking for?” he asks, or tries to, but his brain seems to have forgotten where his mouth is.

Sandburg mind-gestures towards bursts of color like blooming bruises, red-gold and blue-grey. “This is her mindscape,” Sandburg says, or thinks, and not-fingers brush one of the cold-thinking-soft areas. “If she were conscious, this would be images, thoughts, concrete.”

“We can see that she’s asleep, then. So let’s go.”

The sensation of head shaking, and then hands cupping something, like water that isn’t trickling between fingers, so like gelatinized water, but soft. Sad. “A grey-out is much like sleep, if it comes about in a certain way. Her senses--” It’s like he does something, but somewhere else, in a dimension that Stiles can’t experience, and Lydia shudders around him. “It doesn’t seem like her senses are in flux or greyed out, but how can that be, so newly awakened, unbonded…”

There is nothing, and then something brushes Stiles’s mind--

Lydia comes awake growling, launching herself at Sandburg faster than anyone can stop her. Not that Stiles would have been able to, because he’s not actually sure where his hands are, or his body, halfway between his skin and that place in Lydia’s head, resplendent with color. It’s like waking up in the middle of REM sleep while also dissociating.

He tips over sideways on the couch, blinking with blinks that feel too long as he watches Lydia throttle the Guide Prime.

He should care, he thinks, that she’s doing that, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t care about anything, right now.

Dispassionately, he watches Parrish lunge at Lydia, pulling her off of Sandburg to pin her against the floor, holding her down. He puts his mouth against her ear, saying something too low and fast for Stiles to follow as Lydia struggles underneath him. It could be foreplay, in a certain type of porn.

Right around when Stiles figures out where his face is, Parrish picks his head up to look at Stiles and say, “She needs you over here, to know you’re okay.”

Oh.

Stiles takes a breath, then tips himself forward off the couch. His legs don’t catch him, and he ends up on his knees, shuffling over to where the two of them are. Parrish is strong, thanks to his military training and overall muscleyness, but feral Sentinels are in a class of their own. Something about proteins and adrenaline.

Lydia has a hand free by the time Stiles reaches them, and he grabs on to it, intertwining his fingers with hers so she can’t punch him in the face. He expects some resistance, but immediately she stills, going limp.

“Stiles?”

Parrish moves over a little, keeping himself over Lydia’s side so Stiles can lean over her as well. Her eyes are open, but half-blind, clearly not focusing on anything. “Hey,” he says, and touching her is like his body resets himself, like he was half an inch outside of his skin and now he’s back inside of it. “Hey, Lydia. Want to consider calming the fuck down?”

Sandburg--who, right, is still there, getting up from where he’s sprawled across the floor--makes a choking noise, but it does what he’s aiming for, which is startling Lydia out of wherever she is in her head. She blinks at him, eyes focusing on his face so sharply he can see her pupils contract. “What the fuck?” she asks, trying to yank her arm away from Parrish and failing. Her hair is as disheveled as he’s ever seen, her skirt rucked up around her thighs, but there’s something sharp in her eyes, so she can’t be too off from normal Lydia. “Jesus fuck, ow, my head.”

“What do you remember?”

Before she can answer, Lydia’s head jerks over towards Sandburg, and she lets out another growl. “Get out.”

“Miss Martin--”

Lydia lets out a long, low growl, then snaps, “You tried to invade his head, tried to break into his mind like nobody ever taught you what fucking boundaries are. Get  _ out _ , and be glad I don’t throw you out.”

Sandburg blinks at her, then stands and walks out of the room, closing the door behind him. Once the door is closed, Parrish asks, “Are you feeling better?”

“I was fine, sleeping.” Some of the tension eases out of her body, the hard plains of her face softening back to curves. “How long was I out?”

“A couple hours,” Parrish tells her. “He seemed concerned that you fell asleep so easily.”

Lydia glances away, like she’s avoiding their eyes. “It’s manageable, when you’re touching me.” Her throat bobs as she swallows. “Who died?”

Stiles presses his eyes closed, because he’s been avoiding thinking about this as much as he can. He’s honestly been hoping she remembered that part, just so they didn’t have to talk about it again. But apparently they do. “A car ran into a crowd at the school, killed--uh, I’m not sure of the final total, it might have changed. At least twelve casualties.”

Lydia lets out a slow breath. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.” Stiles sighs. “I guess with that much death, you--whatever banshee part of you hit the sentinel part of you, and you ended up onlining. Traumatic onlinings are, you know, traumatic.”

Lydia snorts. “Go figure.”

“I don’t know how much you remember, but the backlash was bad.”

“How bad?”

“My BBC app says a couple Alpha-levels got hit in London.”

Lydia stares at him for a second, then laughs. “Cheers to me, then.” She winces. “Cold floors and sentinel senses do not go together, so maybe we can move this from the floor to somewhere more comfortable.” Her focus flicks to Parrish. “I expect you to carry me like a princess.”

Parrish smirks, then shifts to his knees and maneuvers both of them to pick her up, without any apparent effort. Stiles scrambles clumsily upright to stay in contact with her, and Parris turns the smirk on him. “I can carry you like a princess next, if you’d like.”

Stiles feels his face burn, and he glances away to try to hide the inevitable blush. “I don’t think I’d make a great princess.” They make their way back to the couch, a three person, four-legged march, and somehow they end up on the couch, Stiles almost as much on top of Parrish as Lydia is. It’s ungainly, trying to maintain contact while also squishing onto a not-particularly-large couch.

Eventually, they end up with Lydia curled up on Parrish’s lap with Stiles wrapped around her and Parrish, which is...weird.

“So,” Stiles says once they all finish squirming into place, “why  _ did _ you freak out?”

Lydia rolls her eyes at him. “The son of a bitch tried to break into your head, why do you think I freaked out?”

“Really, that’s it?” Stiles had somehow thought it was only coincidental that she freaked out then, despite her outburst. 

Parrish looks at them, apparently distracted from where he’s stroking Lydia’s ankle. “Did he actually do that? Guides aren’t supposed to do that, not without permission or good cause. There are statutes against that, things the Guide Prime should know.”

Stiles shrugs. “He probably does, but I’m willing to bet nobody calls the Guide Prime out on shit like that, and he can just argue good cause.” He shakes his head. “I’m not planning on picking a fight with the Guide Prime of the US. Let’s not try playing that game.”

One of Parrish’s hand moves from Lydia’s ankle to Stiles’s leg, still with that same stroking movement, and Stiles has to resist the urge to let his eyes close. It feels  _ good _ , and this aside, it’s not like he gets much pleasant touch nowadays.

“Did he hurt you?” Parrish asks, and it takes Stiles a second to realize Parrish is talking to him.

He shakes his head. “No, it was just--he didn’t get in, or anything, I don’t think.” He shakes his head. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.” He looks at Lydia, realizing somewhat belatedly that he should have already asked, “Are your senses okay? Is everything--do you need one of us to talk you up or down or--sideway, whatever?”

“I am currently grounding on two Guides simultaneously,” Lydia says, in that clipped, precise way she has when she’s amused but also being absolutely clear about something, “My senses are enhanced, but my brain is having no trouble processing it. Of course, that will only last so long as I am in contact with you, but for right now, I’m not going to concern myself with that, because I’m going back to sleep.”

And then, to all appearances, she does.

\--

The guy shows up while they’re eating dinner, immaculately dressed but with that air of newly dried sweat and exhaustion that seems to come from long flights. Lydia’s head picks up before he even walks in the room, then drops back down as she goes back to determinedly eating her food.

When he does walk in, though, her legs--one twined around one each of theirs--stiffen but she doesn’t otherwise do anything, just keeps eating.

Stiles, on the other hand, gapes at the man, because while Stiles might not be the strongest Guide in the world, he can tell a strong sentinel from a weak one, and this guy is fucking horrendously strong. It doesn’t doesn’t feel like he’s bonded, but Stiles isn’t sure he has enough training to tell that, and he could be bonded with the woman standing behind him, who kind of gives off the vibe of being able to murder everyone in the room.

Parrish is the one who straightens, saying, “Mr. Holmes.”

Stiles blinks at the guy who’s apparently Mr. Holmes. “The Sentinel Prime of the UK?” Then he blinks at Parrish. “You can recognize the Sentinel Prime of the UK by sight?”

“He spoke to S/G coalition forces in Iraq.” Parrish’s eyes haven’t left Mr. Holmes, whose eyes haven’t left Stiles, which is...unnerving, a bit. “What can we do for you?”

“He can leave,” Lydia says between bites of bland-yet-surprisingly-not-terrible meatloaf.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Mr. Holmes says, voice surprisingly soft. “Despite the discomfort all of us are feeling from three of the strongest Sentinels in the world being in the same building, this is, alas, quite necessary.”

Lydia gives him a smile, sharp and lipstick-red. “I don’t answer to you.”

“No, you don’t. However, I am a stronger Sentinel than the American Sentinel Prime, and considering that you are as well, I would be more of use to you than he would be.” His eyes flick to Stiles, though, which is weird. And also, Stiles hadn’t really registered that  _ three _ of the strongest Sentinels in the world included, well, Lydia.

Lydia apparently notices too, because she asks, “It doesn’t seem to be me that you’re interested in.”

Mr. Holmes’s eyes immediately refocus on Lydia. “Are either of these your intended bonded Guide?”

Lydia’s smile grows blades and glass. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“It is my business,” Mr. Holmes says, “because, if I am not incorrect, one of them is my biological son.”

Stiles, because he’s an idiot, looks at Parrish. Everyone else, because they are not idiots, looks at Stiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have one other chapter that's actually been finished, which I'll post sooner or later, and then things will be posted whenever.


	3. Chapter 3

“Um,” the boy says, sounding uncomfortable. Anthea smells entertained, which Mycroft finds frankly irritating, but the Sentinel and Guide both look fiercely protective of the boy.

“How can you tell?” the Sentinel--Lydia Martin, 17--asks.

Mycroft doesn’t want to take his eyes off the boy--his son, undoubtedly his son--but he looks at her anyway to explain, “Biological relations share certain common markers--facial structure, odor underpinnings--but Sentinels additionally have the instinctive ability to recognize their own biological relatives. It is a means to allow Sentinels to connect to and ground on their biological relatives, giving Sentinels instinctive grounds should they find themselves without a Guide.”

“Okay.” The boy stands, the scent of panic coming off of him in waves; it makes Mycroft want to  _ fix _ it, not only because the boy is his biological son but because he’s a Guide, and that is one of the most overriding instincts Sentinels have. Even Mycroft has that instinct, no matter how good he generally is at repressing it on the personal level. Instead, he just makes his territory as safe as possible for the Guides within it. “Okay, I’m going to go call my actual dad, and then maybe have a panic attack, and in the meantime the four of you can work out...whatever.”

“No,” Mycroft and Lydia Martin say simultaneously, and then Ms. Martin turns a glare on him and says, “If you, a distressed Guide who’s apparently his son, leave, we’re probably going to lose our collective shits.”

The boy hesitates, then looks at the other Guide, who nods. “Lydia’s newly online; her control isn’t going to be the best, even without the stress of the situation.”

“Fine.” The boy sits back down, pulling out his phone; after a few presses, the line is ringing.

The ringing cuts off.  _ “Sheriff Stilinski _ ,” a man’s voice says.

“It’s Stiles,” the boy says. “Before you panic, I’m fine, we’re all fine, but a Sentinel claiming to be my sperm donor is here, so it would be helpful if you could be here, you know, now.”

Mycroft hears the sound of keys, and then footsteps, and the sound of a crowd around the man. A car door opens then closes; the crowd is muffled.  _ “The only people who are supposed to be in there with you are staff of the S/G Center and the Prime Pair. And whoever is over from Britain, their Sentinel Prime. Unless someone else is in there with you.” _

The boy glances at Mycroft as an engine starts near the man. The car he is in, likely. “No, that’s it.”

The man sighs. _ “You never do things by half, do you? Okay, I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t do anything stupid.” _

_ “ _ Do I ever?” the boy asks glibly, then hangs up. He examines Mycroft for a moment, and Mycroft allows him to do so without interruption. 

He has the somewhat disconcerting urge to make this boy like him in a way he virtually never feels outside of with Sherlock and his parents. It is likely as much that the boy is a Guide as that he is Mycroft’s son; the two needs are compounding each other in a way that he has not had to work through in a long time.

“October 1993,” his son says abruptly, then when Mycroft arches a brow at him continues, “When you would have slept with my mom, I mean. October 1993, at a security conference in New York City.”

Mycroft has the abrupt, startling memory of that liaison, one of the few that he ever let himself have. “A UN General Assembly meeting on the cooperation between the United Nations and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Your mother was an interpreter.”

The boy shrugs, then nods. “I don’t know about what it was for, but yeah. She was a Polish interpreter.”

“Czy uczyła cię polskiego?” Mycroft asks.

“Tak,” the boy says, startled, then, “Yes. Yeah, she taught me Polish. Rozumiem język polski lepiej niż go mówię.”

“Gdzie ona jest?”

“Dead,” the boy says flatly. His heart stutters once but is otherwise steady at the word. Not a recent death then, likely. “Look, it’s cool and all that you’re my biological father and whatever, but you’re here for Lydia, so why don’t you...be here for Lydia.”

Ms. Martin says, “Stiles--”

“We can continue this when the Sheriff arrives,” the other Guide says, hand curling around the back of Ms. Martin’s neck when she glares at him. He leans over and presses his mouth to Ms. Martin’s ear, whispering, “Give Stiles a chance to breathe.”

His son does look on the verge of the panic attack he had mentioned earlier, and if Mycroft thought he could let his son out of his sight without feeling the need to track him at the detriment of all else, he would suggest that he go. 

But what he can do is give the illusion of privacy, so he turns his gaze to the other Sentinel in the room. “The American Prime Pair expressed concerns at the speed at which you had apparently leveled out, given the strength of your onlining.”

The garners an interesting reaction, the tension from the three of them ratcheting up significantly. Mycroft feels himself growing tense in response, senses spreading out to locate the danger they seem to be braced against.

It is unideal, the strength of this reaction. He has more control than this, generally, and now he feels as though he is floundering, holding himself steady by force of will and the knowledge that Anthea will kill any threat to him and his son.

“The Guide Prime said that,” the Guide says, voice artificially calm. “And then he used his time checking Lydia’s mind to try to break into Stiles’s.”

Everything goes hyper clear, details resolving themselves in his vision as his hearing locates precisely where in the building the Guide Prime is. He has been ignoring the Prime Pair, as they are behind a white noise generator that he has to actively work to hear past, but if they are a threat to his son--

“Mr. Holmes,” Anthea says, and Mycroft nods, forcing himself back to the level of control he should be maintaining at all times. The level of control he  _ needs _ to maintain at all times.

“Regardless of the Guide Prime’s actions,” he forces himself to say, “your control is a matter of concern. As a matter of practice, the stronger and more traumatic an onlining, the longer the time to return the senses to a manageable level. The fact that you are able to sit there and hold a conversation with me without any apparent risk of zoning is unprecedented.”

He hears the door of the building open and a man walk in; his voice matches the voice his son spoke to on the phone.

“Why should I tell you?” the Sentinel asks. “If I don’t need your help.”

“It could be a sign of something being wrong--a mismatched onlining and ability could be indicative of an underlying issue. Alternatively, if you become overly reliant on a means of control that is then removed, it could cause sudden traumatic zoning.”

Ms. Martin does not answer for a moment, and Mycroft uses that time to track the man who raised his son through the building as he approaches.

“I am grounding on two guides simultaneously,” Ms. Martin says finally, “which allows my brain to distribute the processing of the newly-strengthened senses. I am fully cognizant of the fact that I will not be able to do that in perpetuity, not least of which because current S/G regulations don’t allow for multiple permanent Guides to be registered for a single Sentinel.”

The thought that has been percolating in Mycroft’s head solidifies, and he says, “Not in the United Kingdom. Doubling has been legal since 1994, and Sentinels and Guides can be granted indefinite residency.”

His son gapes at him. The Sentinel is smiling, though, the sort of smile that says that she knows his game. He doesn’t mind; he’s not aiming to be subtle at the moment.

At that moment, before any of them can respond, there’s a knock on the door, and Mycroft says, “Let the Sheriff in, please.”

Anthea opens the door, and Mycroft steps out of the way so Sheriff Stilinski can enter the room; he walks straight to his son, who pops out of his seat to wrap his arms around him.

The Sheriff and Mycroft’s son share a number of similar scent markers, enough to make it obvious to even an oblivious Sentinel that they live together. Somewhat unexpectedly, that makes a point of tension within Mycroft relax, that this man matches his son, cares for his son. He is not possessive, not in the sense of needing to have sole ownership of his kin. He will share them, but he is only willing to do so with the knowledge that they are cared for. It is why he suffers John Watson.

The Sheriff pulls away from his son, then, to look at Mycroft. “So, you think you’re my son’s biological father?”

Possessive language, there, ‘my son’ rather than his name. A particularly strong attachment likely born of a combination of not being the biological father and losing his wife early. “I can confirm that I am,” Mycroft says, “though I would additionally be willing to go through a paternity test if it would make you more comfortable.”

His eyes narrow, and then he asks, “Why are you here?”

“My name is Mycroft Holmes,” Mycroft says, “and I am the Sentinel Prime of the United Kingdom. I am here to offer my help to Lydia Martin, as I am an equivalent level Sentinel who is more intimately familiar with unusual Sentinel processing.”

The Sheriff looks then at Ms. Martin. “You alright, Lydia? Parrish?”

The Guide--a member of the police force, likely--nods, saying, “Yes, sir.”

“I’ve been worse,” the Sentinel says, reaching her hand out towards his son. “I’d like Stiles back, if you don’t mind. He’s helping keep my senses level.”

The Sheriff snorts but lets go of his son, who sits back down, lacing his fingers with the Sentinel’s under the table. “You planning on bonding, then?”

The Sentinel smiles, a bit stiffly, then turns her attention to Mycroft. “Your offer is generous, but I can’t help looking for the strings. Other than that it would require us to live in Britain for some undetermined length of time.”

“It’s contingent on me, I’m guessing,” his son says. His eyes fix on Mycroft. “Unless you’re willing to take Lydia even if I stay here?”

“My offer for aid comes regardless of whether you join her,” Mycroft tells him, and that’s true, but in part because he wants his son to see him as kind. A silly effort, likely, given that he is not kind, but one he is embarking on nonetheless. “I would, however, admit that my preference includes your involvement as well.”

“This offer being?” the Sheriff asks.

“Apparently Parrish and I are jointly keeping Lydia’s senses un--uh, screwed, and US S/G regulations wouldn’t let her bond with both of us simultaneously.” His son glances at the other Guide. “Not that we’ve really discussed this because, you know, regulations and the fact that it’s only been a few hours and shit, but...well, Mr. Holmes proposed that we go to the UK, where apparently we could all be bonded.”

“Someone showed up, said he was your father and that he wanted you to go with him, and you didn’t find this at all suspicious?”

His son laughs. “It’s super suspicious, but Parrish recognizes him, and also Google exists, and paternity tests, and anyway, that’s why I called you.”

A door slams somewhere in the building, and the Sentinel flinches sharply; both Guides curl in towards her like guillemets, the other Guide’s hands touching her face. His son keeps his attention on the Sentinel but turns his face towards Mycroft to say, “Assuming you’re my bio-dad, it was nice to meet you and all, but now is probably not the best time, given, you know, the situation.” He hesitates, fingers of his free hand fidgeting on the table, then asks, “Will you be around?”

The Sentinel is breathing shallowly now, pupils dilating and then contracting, so Mycroft simply says, “I will be.”

\--

They end up going to sleep in a bed that is objectively not large enough for three fully-grown people, but the S/G Center isn’t set up for doubling because monogamy and all that shit, so that’s what they’re stuck with.

Parrish ends up shirtless for no obvious reason, while Stiles stays fully dressed like a Victorian maiden protecting her virtue and Lydia does the magic trick of stripping off her bra without taking off her shirt. Parrish and Stiles end up beside each other on the bed, ostensibly not on top of each other, but Stiles can’t sleep in a straight line, so his arm ends up on the pillow above the top of Parrish’s head, brushing up against Parrish’s hair. Lydia lays on top of both of them in a position that appears both affectionate and protective.

She smells like body wash, and Parrish smells inexplicably like wood smoke--but the good kind--and Stiles feels awkward and ungainly and way too awake.

His biological father is here.

He never had an urge to go looking for his bio-dad, never wanted some sort of tearful reunion, never felt any particular attachment to the man. He was the singular man his mom slept with while she and his dad were on a break, and if there was ever any resentment they kept it far from where Stiles could hear. It was never a big deal, and that might be while Stiles feels so breathless with it now.

Because he has no idea what to do, no idea how to feel. Unlike most other things in his life, he never played this out a million times, never imagined all the different conversations he could have. His mom never said who the man was, other than ‘British’, and the British empire might be gone but there are still a fuckton of British men, and he could have been dead or married or a million things, and Stiles never really cared.

And part of that lack of caring may have been that he never wanted his dad to feel like he wanted to replace him, because he didn’t, he  _ doesn’t _ , but most of it was genuine, and by the time his mom was gone he had bigger things to worry about, and then Scott got turned into a werewolf and there was Peter fucking zombie Hale, and the guy who contributed a single orgasm towards his existence was not at the top of his priorities.

But that does fuck-all for him now, now with the man who claims to be his biological father--who is his biological father, because Stiles can feel it, can feel that that’s the truth--practically next door.

Offering to give them somewhere else than Beacon Hills, and Stiles loves Scott and his Dad but Beacon Hills is a needle in his skin and teeth against his wrist and so many deaths.

And this, with Lydia--whatever is happening with Lydia--is something Stiles wants to pursue, because even without a bond it feels like that hole within his chest is closing, that ever-present ache easing, and he could have a Sentinel.

And Parrish, who’s hot and nice and protective in the way that all of Stiles’s favorite people are, who never gave Stiles a second look but is now.

And Parrish might not want this, and Stiles would never force him into it, and he doesn’t think Lydia would, and maybe Lydia doesn’t want anything with Stiles either, but if he does want it, if they do want it, Stiles doesn’t want to get fucked over by tradition and pointless regulations and society’s fucked up view that S/G relationships should look like traditional romantic relationships.

Teeth close around Stiles’s earlobe, gently, and Stiles almost jumps out of his skin at that little pinch of pain paired with the feeling of lips brushing his ear. And then Lydia whispers, “Go to sleep, Stiles. We’ll still be here tomorrow.” Her hand lifts to his cheek, cupping it, and Stiles turns his head into the softness of her palm.

He still doubts he’ll be able to sleep, but he closes his eyes anyway, evening out his breathing as best as he can to try to convince Lydia that he’s asleep.

It apparently doesn’t work, at least not on Parrish, because he says, “I can help you sleep, if you want.”

Stiles shifts over to face him, suddenly curious. “Really? Is that a thing you can do?”

It sounds like Parrish is smiling when he says, “I’ll show you if you want, but only with your permission.”

Stiles hesitates, but he’s safe here with Lydia and Mr. Former Army, and he really is curious, and otherwise he’s probably not going to sleep tonight, and so he says, “Yeah, okay.”

Parrish’s palm finds Stiles’s side, underneath Lydia’s body, and his voice goes low and hypnotic as he murmurs, “Relax, Stiles. This isn’t going to work if you don’t relax.”

Stiles’s brain tells him not to relax, because it’s a contrary bastard, but then he lets out a long breath and forces his jaw to unclench, and his shoulders, his fingers that he hadn’t noticed digging into the skin of his palms, and by the time he manages to get everything relaxed Parrish has slipped in like another presence in his skill, like someone bracketing his body and dripping warm honey between his lips, and he opens his mouth and closes his eyes and

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that is in fact the end of the chapter.
> 
> This is also the last chapter that I have finished at the moment, so the next chapter will be posted eventually.


	4. Chapter 4

Apparently flying with the Sentinel Prime of the UK has its advantages, because they go through the magic secret diplomat line and then end up in a special rich-person Sentinel-safe lounge. Stiles would probably appreciate it more, but Lydia has been up and down since they got to the airport, and Stiles can feel her discomfort and sensory fluctuations against his skin and the back of his skull.

It doesn’t seem to bother Parrish as much, and he’s not sure if that’s because Parrish is a Beta level Guide or because he’s better trained. Probably a combination of both, which doesn’t really help Stiles at the moment.

His bio-dad, who said that Stiles should call him Mycroft--which seems odd given how posh he seems, but maybe it’s the least weird thing Mycroft could think of--is sitting a little bit away with his assistant-cum-Guide(?)-cum-bodyguard(??), who is typing away on her Blackberry.

Once Lydia is basically stable and Stiles starts to feel even more guilty about staring awkwardly at Mycroft, he says to Lydia, “If you’ll be okay for a minute, I’m going to go--” He gestures awkwardly at Mycroft, who arches an eyebrow at him, and okay, this just got even more uncomfortable.

“I’ll survive,” Lydia says with an eye roll. “Just don’t go far.”

Stiles stands up and heads over towards Mycroft, hands jammed in his pockets. He stops in front of him, gesturing at the chair across from where Mycroft is sitting. “Can I?”

Mycroft inclines his head. “Of course.”

Stiles flops down into it because he’s a graceful gazelle, bashing the back of his thigh on the metal chair arm, and says, “Are you sure about”--he waves a hand--”you know, this? Taking us in, letting us stay with you? I know you talked to my dad about this, and Lydia’s mom, but you’re the Sentinel Prime of a country, and I can’t really imagine you’d want to deal with two teenagers and an adult when you already have to deal with whatever a Sentinel Prime deals with.”

Mycroft smiles tightly, and Stiles has the brief, disconcerting feeling of ruthlessly suppressed amusement, though he’s not sure who it’s from. “As I told your father, even if you were not my son, I would invite the three of you to Britain as soon as I was aware that you intended to double. I was there to offer my help in teaching control before I ever met you, because I am a stronger Sentinel than the American Sentinel Prime, and because I had a similarly traumatic onlining. However, your being my son only increases my desire for you to be in my vicinity.”

“Somewhere you can control,” Stiles says, half in realization. That’s a Sentinel thing, at least as far as he’s read. They like control of their territory, in part to protect any Guide that might be in it, in part because it gives them a way to have a consistent means of grounding and to know if anything is wrong. It’s the same reason Sentinels tend to be ruthlessly neat, which is a thing Stiles does/will not do well with. “But just--you get that I’m not your kid, right? I mean, yes, I share 50% of your DNA, but I already have a dad. I don’t need another one.”

That doesn’t look like it bothers Mycroft. “Of course. I am not planning on usurping your father’s place in your life, and I do not expect you to obey me as you would a father. You do not owe me any allegiance. But you did inherit approximately half of my genetic material, and I was raised to value family. I would do what I can to keep you safe regardless of your opinion of me, but to be able to learn what I can from you in person, while being able to aid you in something that I am qualified to do so in, would be preferable.”

It still seems weird to Stiles, the idea of his bio-dad just showing up, figuring out that they’re related, and offering to let him and Lydia and Parrish into his home, but he guesses it has to be a Sentinel thing. There’s a  _ lot _ on bloodlines in S/G literature, and high-level Sentinel who’s probably from a traditional old family, that seems like the recipe for really caring about that sort of shit.

Stiles curls one leg up to his chest, wrapping an arm around it. His head has been throbbing gently since the morning, and he’s not sure how much of it is him and how much of it is Lydia. Because they’re not bonded, not even remotely, but he’s pretty sure the Guide part of his brain, as untrained as it is, knows that she’s grounding on him and is doing--something.

Honestly, fuck if he knows what’s going on.

Mycroft just stares at him, so Stiles looks at the assistant, saying, “I never actually got your name.”

The assistant looks up at him from her Blackberry for just long enough to say, “Anthea.”

“Cool.” Stiles shifts his weight on the seat. “That’s a...name.” Lydia snickers from where she’s sitting, and Stiles feels his face burn. He rubs his face, looking back at Mycroft to try again. “Look, what are your expectations here? I get that you’re bringing us there to help Lydia, but is this just--” He waves a hand. “Never mind. I don’t know what I’m asking.”

“I expect we would be best served by entering this situation without set expectations. Your mother was an exception,” Mycroft says. “I did not expect to find a child of mine.”

So Mycroft doesn’t know what he’s doing either. Great.

Though that is a bit reassuring, that Stiles isn’t the only person who’s floundering.

An announcement from the PA system says that there is ten minutes until the boarding for their flight; at the sound of it, Anthea stands up and walks over towards Lydia and Parrish. Stiles follows, because he’s mistrustful as hell and also wants to know what’s going on.

“Before we board,” Anthea says to Lydia, “you’d do best to take something so you’re not overwhelmed by your senses. While you’re stronger than a Beta-level Sentinel, superol may give you enough stability to last the flight without a zone or overload. I can also give you a Sentinel-safe sedative.”

“And if I don’t take either of those?” Lydia asks.

“Then you’ll regret it.”

Lydia stares levelly at Anthea for a moment, then says, “I’ll risk it.”

Apparently risking it is a bad idea, because as soon as the engine starts Lydia crumples in on herself in her business class seat, hands pressed to the her temples. Stiles can feel her pain, but he’s sitting across the aisle from her next to Mycroft, and they haven’t left the ground, and he can’t get up and go to her, and he needs to help but  _ can’t _ .

Parrish puts a hand on her cheek, turning her face towards him and speaking in a voice too low and urgent for Stiles to pick up. Stiles feels a pang of--not jealousy, precisely, but longing, wishing he could be there instead of Parrish, or with him.

There’s nothing he can do about it right now, and he doesn’t want to keep watching, so he turns and looks at Mycroft, who looks totally fine, staring placidly at the seat back in front of him. “How are  _ you _ fine?” Stiles asks, and he sounds slightly more resentful than he intended. “If you’re also such a strong Sentinel, I mean.”

“Any Sentinel would struggle with a plane ride,” Mycroft says, eyes not leaving the seat back. “A Beta-level Sentinel would simply be able to take superol and have it be effective.”

“As an unbonded Sentinel, then. Because there’s no way Anthea is your bonded Guide, and I can’t believe you would go across the ocean from your Guide.”

“You are correct, I am unbonded.” Mycroft finally pulls his gaze away from the apparently-riveting seat back to glance at Lydia. “I am able to maintain control through practice and experience. It is control I aim to teach Ms. Martin.”

“Even if we’re going to bond with her?” They haven’t really officially decided that that’s going to happen--they haven’t had an actual conversation about it--but considering that they’re both traveling across the Atlantic with her--for her--he figures it’s not a bad assumption.

Mycroft’s eyes return to the seat back. He seems...smaller now, almost, or emptier. “I detest the American tradition of teaching Sentinels to rely on their bonded Guides rather than their own training. A Sentinel, outside of a time of trauma, should not be incapacitated simply by not being with a bonded Guide.”

That hurts, in an unexpected way, that his biological father is one of those assholes who thinks Guides aren’t as important as Sentinels, that they should just be forced to the side when they’re not needed. Stiles knows his worth, but it sucks anyway.

“You don’t believe in Sentinels bonding to Guides, then?”

Mycroft blinks. “My own refusal to take a Guide is unrelated to my views on Sentinels and Guides.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

Mycroft is silent as the plane begins taxiing, and it’s only once the wheels have left the ground that he says, “I believe there is utility in Sentinels bonding to Guides. But an overreliance on Guides can cripple a Sentinel, make them vulnerable by simply separating them from their Guide. And the reliance on Guides ties Guides to Sentinels, forcing them to live their lives wrapped around that Sentinel, pulled in whatever direction the Sentinel wishes.” His eyes dart towards Stiles. “I would not have that for my son, given the choice.”

“So you don’t want me to bond with Lydia?” Not that that would keep Stiles from doing it, if that’s what they decide on, but it could make things tricky, and he’d rather know beforehand.

Mycroft’s eyes settle back on the seat back again. “That is not something I would delude myself into thinking I could control. But should you make that decision, I plan to ensure that the three of you have the skills and control to not be forced into a situation you wish to avoid.”

Before Stiles needs to think of a response, the fasten seatbelt sign turns off, and Stiles tears off his own seatbelt to head across the aisle and crouch down in front of Lydia. There’s not really enough space between her legs and the seat in front of her, but he’s stuck himself in smaller spaces before, and if he ends up between her legs, whatever.

“Hey, Lyds,” he says quietly, and she opens one eye just enough to look at him. He grabs the hand that Parrish isn’t holding, prying it off of the armrest to hold it in his hand. “How about walking your hearing down. Have you tried that?” That one eye glances at Parrish, who shakes his head. “Didn’t work? Okay. Makes sense. It is loud in here. Any chance of you being able to concentrate on one of our heartbeats, use that to press out the sound of the plane?”

Lydia shakes her head, mouthing, “Zone.”

Ah. Yeah, that could be a problem. “How about the Sentinel sedative?”

Lydia looks unhappy about that idea, and Stiles isn’t going to press it, not right now, so he just strokes her hand and presses against her legs and tries to ignore the ache growing in his knees. This space is not actually big enough for him to fit in it, not by a long shot.

“What did--” Lydia gasps out, then clamps her mouth shut. “What did you and Holmes talk about?”

“You weren’t listening?”

Lydia clenches her eyes shut. “ _ Talk _ , Stiles.”

“Right. Okay. Uh, we talked about his views on Sentinel-Guide bonding, which is, you know, weird, but given that he has no actual say in who I bond with, it doesn’t ultimately matter.”

Behind him, he hears a woman say, “Sir, you can’t--” and then Anthea says, “This is official business of the Sentinel Prime of the United Kingdom.”

Parrish smiles at that. “Handy, isn’t that?”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Stiles glances at him. “That sleep thing. Any chance it’ll work on Lydia? Instead of a Sentinel sedative.”

“Not unless she lets me in.”

Stiles leans up towards Lydia, though the move makes his calves ache, and says, “Hey, Lyds. Want to let us in, want to let us help?”

“You are helping,” she grits out, then flinches, pulling her hands--and theirs--towards her head. “Shit.”

This isn’t working. “Lydia, there are twelve hours of this left, and you’re not going to make it through that. You’re going to overload or you’re going to zone. We don’t have the training for this, and we don’t have a bond. Come on, Lyds, either let us in or take a sedative.”

Lydia’s jaw clenches, and then she says, “You. Both. Fine.”

Stiles stands up in between Lydia’s legs, pressing in close to her, as Parrish says, “We’re going to need to get inside your head. Stiles, do you know how Sandburg brought you into it?” Stiles shakes his head. “Okay, I’ll bring you in, but Lydia, you need to lower your shields or this is going to hurt all of us.”

Lydia nods.

Parrish takes one of Stiles’s hands in his own, pressing their touching hands to Lydia’s cheek. “Take a breath, Lydia, and let it out. Relax your legs, your arms, relax and  _ let us in _ .”

At the last word, something tugs at Stiles, and his eyes fall shut to that world he had been in before, inside Lydia’s head, only instead of the bright colors it’s thoughts and emotions and so much information rushing past, and Stiles wants to follow after it, but Parrish tugs him away from all of it.

It’s like the feeling of Parrish’s hands on his face, keeping him in place, even though Stiles knows his hands aren’t there, and Parrish’s mind-voice says, “To get her to sleep, you need to relax, too. Take a second, calm yourself down, and then think of it like a dimmer switch. For right now, you handle the dimming, and I’ll handle everything else.”

Stiles takes a deep breath--forces himself to take it with his body and not just his mind--and then he imagines a dimmer switch, imagines pulling it down, imagines it getting darker. Parrish is saying something, and Stiles can hear that there are words but not what they are. He forces his focus on dimming it, dimming everything around him.

There’s a jolt, like a flinch, and then pain shoots through his head, and he tears himself away, out of her head, his hands scrabbling for purchase somewhere, anywhere. There’s something hot and wet running down his lips, and the taste of metal down his throat, and there are tears running down his cheeks, and it hurts so much.

“Anthea,” a voice says, and then a pill is being pressed between his lips, and a different voice says, “Swallow.” Something touches his lips, and water fills his mouth, and he swallows, swallows again, and the pain eases. When he opens his eyes, he’s standing in the aisle, Anthea standing in front of him with a bottle of water in one hand. There’s a flight attendant staring at them, as well as some of the other passengers, but Stiles ignores all of that to turns around and see Lydia.

She’s slumped down in her seat, Parrish leaning over her with blood running down from his nose. He wipes it away, smearing it across his face, then looks up at them. “That didn’t go as planned. You okay?”

Stiles nods, his head feeling a little wobbly, like a bobblehead with a loose spring. “Yeah. I think. What happened?”

“She panicked, there was a kickback. It kicked you out, but I stayed in long enough to put her out. It wasn’t graceful, and she’ll have a hell of a headache when she wakes up, but she’s asleep.”

“Is she going to be okay?”

“I’m more concerned about you,” Parrish says. He tries to unfasten his seatbelt, but his hands are shaking so much they slide off the locking mechanism.

“I just gave him a low dose of emergency kytine to stop the empathetic backlash,” Anthea says, guiding Stiles back down to his seat, “which means he is currently stable and will be empathetically blind in about five minutes.”

“What?”

Anthea fastens Stiles into his seat, tilting his head back to look in his eyes. “It was the fastest and safest way to bring you down from empathetic backlash without either a stable Sentinel or a Guide to bring you down from it. The empathetic blindness will last for between three and six hours, and will be accompanied by tiredness, so I suggest you spend that time sleeping.” Apparently satisfied with whatever she saw in Stiles’s eyes, Anthea looks at Parrish. “Are you okay?”

Stiles turns his head to look at Mycroft, who’s staring at him. “Are we going to have to be carted off the plane in stretchers?”

“No.”

“Good,” Stiles says, and then exhaustion hits him, and his eyes slip closed, and everything goes muffled and cushioned around him.

\--

Mycroft’s son might very well be the death of him, if this plane ride is anything to go by. To smell the blood, his son’s blood, makes him want to destroy something, ruin someone. He is able to remain calm, particularly in the middle of this hellhole of an aircraft, filled with recycled air smelling of too many people and the sound of jet engines, by maintaining a measure of control.

His son, he has no control over. His son’s pain, he has no control over. He has no way to make it better, no way to move them somewhere else, somewhere safe.

With Anthea standing between his son and the other Guide, Mycroft reaches out and touches his son’s cheek with his knuckles. His skin is marked by the remnants of acne, but it has the elasticity of youth, and is warm. His son shifts at the touch but doesn’t move away.

Mycroft will make him safe.

**Author's Note:**

> I've finished the first few chapters of this, but I'm going to be honest right from the beginning that I'm not really sure where this is going in any sort of particular plot sense, so if you're reading this for a new destructions or Werewolves 101-style plot, it might not be as much your thing.


End file.
